Yes, the land can rise or sink, but the water level stays the same.
There would be no way to measure such a thing. This is the point, they claim they know how much the water rose to within inches YET parts of Japan Moved FEET, not inches, but FEET during the big quake.
When Plates shift that much there is no way to tell what volume of water is in the oceans accurately (like there was any way to tell accurately in the first place) For instance when that large shift happened a fissure deep in ocean might have opened and lava shot up making a large plateau on the bottom of the ocean this would undoubtedly cause water to displace. Stuff like this happens frequently its how islands are formed yet none of this is ever talked about when they talk of oceans rising.